Kindle Fire HDX Accessibility Features

If you have challenges with manual dexterity (for example, carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritis), vision, or hearing, you may find that new and improved accessibility features can help you in using your Kindle Fire HDX.

Here's a quick rundown of available accessibility features:

Screen Reader: Screen Reader audibly describes the actions you're taking on your Kindle Fire HDX. If you turn this setting on, the Reading Speed and Explore by Touch settings become available. Turning Screen Reader on also turns on Explore by Touch. The way you interact with your Kindle Fire changes dramatically when you turn these features on, so it's recommended you walk through the tutorial that's offered before you start to work with them. The most important thing to know is that when turned on, you have to tap and then double-tap items onscreen to perform an action.

Explore by Touch: With this setting on, you can use gestures to interact with items on the device. There are five accessibility shortcut gestures that you can use to go home, go back, or gain access to notifications, the menu for an active app, and Kindle Fire's accessibility settings. When you turn this feature on, an Explore by Touch tutorial appears and walks you through how to use the feature.

Screen Magnifier: Toggles on and off a feature that enlarges your entire screen. Once turned on, triple tapping magnifies the screen, and you can then control the screen magnification by pinching your fingers inward or outward. Also, with Screen Magnifier on and the page enlarged, swiping two fingers across the screen allows you to move around the page to see portions of it that may now be off screen.

Use Large Font Size: Toggles on and off larger fonts onscreen.

Closed Captioning: Turns on closed captioning for videos; note that only some videos are enabled for closed captioning.

Convert Stereo to Mono: If you have poor hearing in one ear, stereo sound can make you miss some of the audio coming at you. You can use this setting to turn on Mono audio.

Accessibility User's Guide: For a quick tutorial on how to use various accessibility features, tap this and scroll through the user's guide that's displayed.

Explore by Touch Tutorial: Tap this setting to bring up the Explore by Touch tutorial, which also appears automatically when you turn on the Explore by Touch feature.